YCAR is pleased to partner with the Emergent Futures CoLab, a laboratory for transdisciplinary experimentation and collaborative future-making. The collective of scholars and artists work on activist, speculative and future-oriented projects.
They are actively seeking members, speakers and advisors. If you are interested, please reach out to them via Facebook or their website.
This transnational collective emerged in March 2020, after the COVID-19 pandemic instigated the cancellation of Urgent-Emergent 2020, York University’s Theatre & Performance Studies graduate conference. "As our political, economic and environmental futures become increasingly uncertain, we are concerned with what it means to research, collaborate, intervene, create art and take action in this climate of felt urgency. How can radical uncertainty be channelised into new futures?" said co-founder Rajat Nayyar, a doctoral student in Theatre & Performance Studies.
Their goal is to bring together individuals and communities who are reimagining, improvising and shaping emergent futures and socialities. They are interested in projects that take different forms, such as a digital app, a game, a community website, an accessible and inclusive technology, a stage performance, a film, a community-led or entrepreneurial initiative, advocacy efforts, new pedagogies, etc.
"We envision a community of practice that maps out collaborative methodologies and builds solidarity in order to shift our collective focus towards urgent action," said Nayyar.
Their first initiative is "Talking Uncertainty," an online talk series that highlights how individuals and communities are staging, designing, performing and transforming futures.
Our speakers:
a) Work on #collaborative, #futureoriented projects with clear outcomes;
b) #Cocreate and #reimagine more #equitable futures with communities and for their benefit;
c) Keep an account of the contingencies, negotiations, ethical issues and #improvisatory methods employed;
d) Are willing to engage in critical discussion about the #frictions faced during their research and practice
All of their talks recorded and published on the website. You can register to become an EFC member if you would like to attend and participate in the live talks. They are also welcoming recommendation for speakers at https://www.urgentemergent.org/recommend-speaker.
Emergent Futures CoLab partners: Centre for Imaginative Ethnography, Peripheral Visions Lab, York's School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design, and YCAR.